This is The Way
by twilightjunkie1313
Summary: Nyota/Spock oneshot. "There is a rightness and a horrific wrongness in what I am doing. I register both. I have no right to love her. I have no right to want to love her. I open the door and exit." R&R.


This is The Way

Spock Pov:

Sunlight. It was what allowed me to see and what blinded me at that very moment. Illogical. Truth even so.

There was a window, large and unneeded for the structure of the building to be sound, it was attractive. It allowed for vast amounts of light to fill the gaping atrium for the Faculty housing building.

I hear her footsteps, a solid confident stride that stops a few feet behind me and to my left. She is waiting for me to speak, wondering why I left my quarters before she woke.

I shut my eyes for a moment, an orange glow lighting the inside of my eyelids. This conversation cannot wait. But despite my contemplation and mental preparation for it, I am not ready.

I turn from the window careful to keep her from my vision, internally admonishing the person responsible for putting such a large window on the east side of the building. I start walking, hearing her follow. I speed up my pace, slightly but enough to decrease our travel time by three seconds.

Behind me she adjusts. Following the lead I have set and matching it. It is something I always noticed with her. Humans have a natural capacity to adjust to things they do not actively register as changing.

We have been walking for seven and three fourths minutes, useless time spent. I have led us, without thought, back to the atrium, I slow to a stop and turn to face her. We are in public, so she adjusts and stops quicker, standing further from me then she would in a casual setting.

I calculate quickly. The space between us is exactly four feet six inches.

"Explain." She says. Her posture is perfect. An imitation of the stance I hold presently. Her feet are planted firmly together instead of shoulder width apart; I contemplate the effect it will have on her balance.

"Why are we here?" She asks, her tone quieting instead of rising.

I am aware that she is asking more then one question, that this phrasing is the easiest and the most acceptable for our surroundings. She is a linguistics master, capable of bending a word to suit her need.

She is asking why I was down here, instead of in my quarters. She is asking why I was not there when she woke up.

"You followed me." I answer.

She is quiet for a moment. I notice how the light plays off her features. We are facing each other, one half our bodies in shadow, one half in highlight. Her jaw line and cheekbones seem more present then before.

I look away, needing to focus elsewhere in order to collect my mind. The sunlight makes the large white space seem cold, bleached and unforgiving.

"You knew I would follow." She sounds calm.

I look back at her face again, fixing my eyes on hers.

"Indeed I did."

She does not break her posture, that perfect mimicry of me that is different in its own way.

"Explain." She requests. In public I am still her superior, the most she can do of me is make a request. I gather myself.

"I cannot allow you to commit yourself to this relationship any longer." I do not want to say this, I do not want to dismiss her. It is highly likely that if I do end this relationship she will not attempt to maintain contact with me.

I hear the words come out anyway. I do not stop them from coming. In my mind I picture her even breathing and slender fluid lines wrapped in my sheets. It undoes the control I came down here to find. I feel fear and pain and something I do not know how to label.

I see her want to move, her body shifts from one leg to the other slightly. Her shoulders roll forward then back just enough to move her uniform. Humans are a race of motion, I note mentally. She blinks and looks at me.

"I request that we move this conversation to a more private location." Her tone is professional. I nod a quick agreement and her posture shifts.

She begins to move, her pace even and fast. Brutally efficient, she leads the way down the main hallway and to a lift near the hallways end.

We wait in silence.

She waits for me to enter first, then follows silently and presses the button for my floor.

"Nyota, please." She presses the button for the roof as well.

The doors open to the roof and she walks out of the lift. I follow as she leads us to a seating area. Neither of us sit, she stands by a chair and I choose to stand next to a couch.

"Why are you unable to allow me to commit myself to this relationship any longer?" She is calm.

"I am sorry." I do not tell her that our careers would end, that everything I worked for and everything she had ever learned would not matter to Starfleet. To them this was simply against the rules. I did not tell her that I could never be as human as she was, or that she could have her pick of companions more loving and openly affectionate then myself.

"That is not a reason Spock."

There is a pause between us.

"Nyota…" I am fully prepared to try and explain myself. She moves, breaking her stance and turning her back from me long enough to run her hands over her hair roughly. I cannot find the words I had seconds ago, she is upset. I have caused this emotion in her.

"There is too much at stake here." I mutter softly. She turns back to be again.

"I know." Her body is still, her eyes neither cold nor warm.

I do not ask her what she knows.

I do not ask if she was awake enough to feel me sit on the edge of the bed last night, my head in my hands.

"Why were you gone when I woke?" It is a whisper from her, but I hear it.

"Nyota I cannot explain properly." I blink and she takes a few steps to me, closing the distance faster then I expected her to.

"Show me." She takes my wrist gently in her hand, bringing my hand to her face.

"Nyota, you cannot want this." I didn't pull my hand away.

My fingertips brush her left temple. I felt a spark of emotion, a slight jolt to my system as empathy and confusion hit me. Her emotions, now mine as well.

"I want this." She breaths, her eyes sliding shut as she leans into my hand slowly.

I feel her thoughts first, her memories opening up and playing out for us both.

_She wakes; her first images are of my darkened quarters, which she recognizes after a moment of confusion. There is joy as she recalls us; the sharp bright tang of her joy is warming. _

_She moves in the bed, rolling over to find my half empty and cold. She lays on her back, a shadow of numbness spreading over her and clouding the joy she had felt so strongly just a few moments ago. _

I feel guilt at causing her this bleakness, but I hide the emotion from her in the meld.

Her memories skip quickly over her as she showers and dresses, they slow back to normal as walks out of my bedroom and into the main living space.

_Her joy erases itself as she realizes that I am not there. She looks at the counter and my desk, hoping for a note, something to tell her I thought of her as I left._

We watch her memories.

_She walks to the window, the east facing window, where the sun blinds as it rises over the trees and white gleaming buildings of campus. She presses her forehead to the glass, her hands moving up near her shoulders to rest palm down on the slick surface. Her eyes slide shut and the images stop. The thoughts in her mind race and I listen as they play._

_She wonders if I had given her space to get ready and then leave, a cold efficient goodbye until we saw each other in the halls. She wonders if I would acknowledge our actions._

I feel remorse at her thoughts. I will always acknowledge last night.

_She wonders how long I have been gone, ever since she fell asleep or just since the sunrise, her mind whispered that the time I left meant something. The rest of her shouts that I left, that she should leave as well. Her mind all but screams that we have reached a point where we will break or continue forward_.

I feel her begin to close off her memories, the last slivers I see from her mind before I retract from her past thoughts are of her opening her eyes and seeing the sun.

_She loves him too much to walk away. _

I pretend I did not feel the spark of intense sadness and incredible strength that flows within that shard of her memory. It is enough to make me shudder.

I pull her safely away from my mind, separating us back into ourselves enough so she can open her eyes again.

"Show me what you felt." She speaks and I am aware of my body, my hand still on her face, sparks of her emotions trying to seep into my mind.

"Are you sure that is what you want?" I am afraid to show her, afraid she will finally understand how rational and logical my reasons for leaving are. I am half afraid she will walk away, even though it is what I want.

She nods.

Her eyes shut as my vision turns to black. Instantly the memories I have play, smooth and detailed. It is a contrast to her memories. Her recollection left smudges of grey, black and white in places she could not recall. The lines of things she did not remember clearly blurred.

My memories are clear, grey shaded due to the light in the room. Some details appear hazy, or farther away, but most are sharp and clean. I feel her looking at the quality of the first image I recall, as if she is amazed by it and confused by it.

I push my memories forward, playing them out.

_She is there, her skin inches from my fingers, her breath even and her pulse stable. I am amazed at her as she simply breaths. Her vertebrae are shadows under her skin and I want to feel them. _

I push the memory forward harder, sliding past the moments I spent looking at her sleeping.

_She rolls onto her back and it is too much for my mind. I sit up feeling my blood hammer in my body. I restrain myself as too many questions inch into my thoughts. I feel a want for her as she lays there. I feel fear that what I have done is wrong, not only ethically but in some other way I cannot name. I worry that she will wake and understand that there is so much I cannot do for her. I brush over the thought that there are many human beings who would gladly do for her what I have, that they would not have the fears I do now. _

_I feel anger and possessiveness well up in myself at that thought. I do not want to see her with someone else. I look at her sleeping body again. I want her as mine, she is mine. My body and her presence here tell me this. There is satisfaction in me at her choice to be here instead of in the quarters of any other male on this planet._

_I turn away from her quickly, standing and walking to the next room. I press my forehead against the window, the moonlight making me paler then any human could ever be. The world sleeps, the campus still and cast in pale white silence._

_I have no right to be with her. I have no right to want her._

My memories take on an odd quality, as we watch we are aware of Nyota, her body sleeping and simply existing. Yet we are almost unaware of my actions.

_I move to the bathroom, dressed in my uniform, my hair messy. I look at myself in the mirror and quickly smooth out my appearance. I brush my teeth and when it is over I grip the sides of the sink hard. I close my eyes and hold myself together._

_I have decided to leave, to walk out and let her get ready in peace. I do not want to see the look on her face if she wakes and regrets me. I want nothing more then to stay beside her. Both wants cannot be satisfied._

_In an instant I am at my front door. I stand there and breath, in and out, in and out. There is a rightness and a horrific wrongness in what I am doing. I register both._

_I have no right to love her. I have no right to want to love her._

_I open the door and exit. _

I feel Nyota's shock in though the meld. I feel a thought of hers as it swims between us.

_Is there anything else, more I should see?_

_An image of me standing in the atrium, my shadow long and thin on the white floor, the sun half blinding her, my body a black outline against the window_.

She is asking about my thoughts and actions as of that moment. I understand this because she feels curious, and I can sense it sparking off of her.

_Very well._

I recall the memory and focus on it. I feel her mind quiet as she watches.

_I hear her behind me. My control shreds itself. She needs and answer and I have nothing to give her. I have been thinking for hours and my mind. My Vulcan mind is untrained for this. It cannot give me an answer. I have no reaction other then fear and loss and sadness._

_This ends now. I cannot ruin her future and mine. It does not matter how right everything feels. I should not feel -it will get in my way. _

_I keep her from sight so her face doesn't undo me. I set a quick pace as we walk. I have no idea where we are going from here._

As carefully as I can I push her back into her mind, I pull myself out of our meld and snap my eyes open. I take my hand from her face and fix my eyes on her.

Her eyes stay shut for a few moments as I observe. It is remarkable the way she assembles herself. I watch her fight her soaring heart rate and slow her quick breathing.

When she opens her eyes we are both quiet.

"I forgive you." She says slowly. I lean my forehead to hers and blink once.

"I cannot express how sorry I am for causing you sadness."

There is a pause.

"Will you forgive me for not being able to accept your request forbidding me to commit to this relationship?" She was looking at me. From the angle her eyes were huge and bright.

"You are forgiven." I try to sound calm. She smiles wide enough for us both and pulls away, walking toward the lift. I stand quietly, questioning her actions.

It is a testament to her that she does not need to see or hear me to know I am confused.

"Breakfast." She explains over her shoulder. I can hear a slight amused tone in her words.

"Are you coming?"

I nod in reply. Then, recalling that she has her back to me, I think of a suitable response.

"Indeed."


End file.
